


make it rain (for me)

by ffantastic



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Cats, First Kiss, Flowers, M/M, Magical Realism, One-Sided Rivalry, Rivals to Friends to Lovers, Spring, as in lance 'doesn't like keith' at first, cottagecore aesthetic, it's a little weird and whimsical, keith and lance both have abilities related to rain, keith has a cat, my season was spring, written for the four seasons of klance zine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:40:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27780010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ffantastic/pseuds/ffantastic
Summary: Someone new moves into the old house at the edge of the forest. Lance knows from first glance that he doesn't like the guy - he's stuck up and weird and all signs point to him being a witch. The kind of person that has looked down on Lance for his useless ability all his life.He does have a cute cat, though.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 86





	make it rain (for me)

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for the four seasons klance zine! it was a lot of fun working on it with my artist partner  
> [jay](https://www.instagram.com/teacloudii/) who did an amazing piece <3 i've wanted to write a fantasy fic for a while, i hope you'll like it!

On their walk to visit the new neighbor, it started raining.

Lance was trying to sneak closer to Hunk's side, where a delicious, chocolatey-rich smell was wafting from the basket under his arm, when a drop of water hit him between the eyebrows. Hunk switched the basket over.

"No, Lance. You know who the muffins are for."

"We don't know if he likes muffins! And anyway – ", he turned his eyes to the sky with a sigh, "whatever. I can't eat with one hand."

There it was, the tell-tale rush, the vertigo, like he had taken a step and missed Earth by just a bit. Hunk also cast his eyes upwards, where a mass of gray clouds now hid the sun and offered Lance his arm without another word. Lance gripped it tightly and clenched his teeth.

Rain had a distinct feeling to him. A thunderstorm in summer was a distant growling in the pit of his belly, the hairs on his arms standing up. A slow rainy day in autumn was a cold shiver through his veins, but a warmth in his heart. Icy snow sheets in winter were shivering, and an itching in his fingertips. And a spring drizzle was a fresh smell in his nose, and a smile on his lips.

Lance despised being caught out in the rain. He was useless with his feet ten inches in the air, when he had nothing to hold onto. At least Hunk was used to pulling him along, and if they were lucky, it would be over soon.

Hunk made a surprised sound and pulled his basket closer as the rain picked up, pelting the ground and staining it dark.

"Man, I hope that's just a quick shower!"

"Hm, doesn't feel like –"

Lance's heart clenched. He had felt rain all his life and nothing surprised him anymore. But this was different. It was early March, but there was no fresh smell in his nose. No smile on his lips. The rain wasn't nourishing or soft, it was sad: Like a strong hand had gripped Lance’s heart and squeezed with every breath he took. It was melancholy, deep beneath his breastbone, someone spilling the rain like secrets from their depths.

The rain felt human.

Nature felt vast and old, gentle or scary but never in between, always just out of reach of his fingertips. But this was a feeling Lance could grasp easily. It was a deep-rooted sadness, but a human sadness, not vast or old, neither gentle nor scary. Just real.

"The rain feels weird," Lance croaked.

His hair was soaked. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and Lance was cold, but the feeling was overwhelming. He shivered.

"Really? You're the rain guy."

Hunk just shrugged when their eyes met and pulled him along faster. The clouds broke open behind the next bend in the path, and Lance's feet touched the floor again. The feeling had dissipated, and left Lance with curiosity, a tingling sense of worry, and the desperate need to find whoever was responsible.

  
  


As long as Lance had lived in town, the cottage at the edge of the forest with the rotten greenhouse had been empty. It was more of a decoration than a home to him, with its overgrown roof and broken-through windows. The greenhouse was left over from a long-forgotten decade, glass long gone blind, and with no one tending to the plants inside, they had grown and withered and made their own jungle. Lance liked to look at the cottage and the greenhouses when he took his walk through the forest, but he wouldn’t want to live there. It was a pretty ruin, and he liked his own house just on the outskirts of the village. He liked his vegetable patches and the dreamy atmosphere of his one-story wooden house, just like he had imagined his own place when he had been a kid. The only thing missing was someone to come home to, and maybe a pet.

The place he found when he and Hunk turned around the path’s last corner was nothing at all like how he remembered it. The broken windows were replaced, the façade scrubbed in between the ivy and climbing hydrangea. The garden was still wild and overgrown, but there was a fence now with an archway entrance, painted white and shining with oil, and to the left of the cottage, the greenhouse stood with its door open, and a heap of cut-down greens outside. The large tree, branches spanning almost the whole garden, that had been as good as dead and never bloomed for as long as Lance could remember, was budding. Lance and Hunk shared a look of awe. Lance leaned closer and whispered:

“When did you say he moved in?”

Hunk shrugged, but his eyes were as large and in awe as Lance’s. Lance peeked at the cottage again: Curtains were closing off the view of the inside, but if it was anything like the outside, he couldn’t wait to see it. Heart pounding in anticipation, he moved behind Hunk through the door in the fence. Petrichor lingered in the air, but the sky was clear, and the rain wasn't a priority now that Lance couldn't feel it.

Next to Lance, a patch of tall grass moved, and a tiny ginger cat strutted out with its tail high in the air. Lance grinned. If the cottage had always been like this, with a wild garden and a kitty included, he would have moved in there instead of into his own house without a second thought. He kneeled and held out his hand to the cat.

“Here, kitty!”

The cat stopped. The tip of her tail twitched. Lance grinned a little wider. Her fur was full of grains, but soft and well-cared for. She turned around and surveyed Lance with bright green eyes – Lance couldn't wait to sink his fingers into her fluffy cheeks. The cat meowed softly, turned around, and placed one paw on the door. Lance sighed.

“I bet it’s cuddly. It just needs to warm up to me.”

“Sure, buddy.”

The door opened a tad, and a faint voice called out "Red!". The cat squeezed through, then the door opened wider, and Lance looked up.

 _He_ was not making the rain feel melancholy. He didn’t look like this cottage, or the greenhouse, so careful and painstakingly arranged, so pretty and yet still showing such a care for what nature wanted. He didn’t look like rain. He just looked like trouble: Jet-black, overgrown hair, dark clothes, mud and paint stains on his pants and his bare feet. His mouth was tight, and his eyes were wary beneath his uneven bangs. Everything about him roused something in Lance, a pit of fire in his stomach, a burning in his limbs, aching to do something about it. Although the cat liked him - snaked between his legs and wound its tail around one of his legs - Lance couldn’t bring himself to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. He looked down at Lance with his thick eyebrows raised, as if he was confused about this sopping wet idiot on his knees on his lawn, and Lance stood. Blood was rising to his cheeks. He didn’t want it there, but he couldn’t will it away.

Hunk cleared his throat.

“Hi, we’re your new neighbors. I brought - uh - muffins.”

He shuffled a few steps to the door when the guy barely reacted and held out the basket. New neighbor glanced at the basket, at Hunk, and reached out hesitantly. Lance balled one of his fists and took a step closer to Hunk. What did he think? The muffins were bad? If so, Lance had a few choice words for him.

“Thanks.”

He went to close the door. Lance stepped forward and wedged his foot inside before he knew what he was doing. The guy’s eyes were on him, still dark and intense, and now widened in some unspecified emotion. Lance didn’t know what he was saying anymore.

“You don’t wanna show a little bit of gratefulness and invite us inside, huh?”

He frowned.

“I don’t even know who you are.”

Lance huffed and pointed over his shoulder.

“This is Hunk. I’m Lance. We’re from town. Now you know who we are.”

It was silent as the guy’s eyes switched between Lance’s dirty boot on his doorstep, Lance’s glare, and Hunk behind him.

“Okay, cool. I’m Keith. But I’m busy, so, uh, maybe later.”

He closed his door, slowly, to give Lance enough time to pull back his foot. He wouldn’t have, but Hunk pulled him back by his sleeve. The lock clicked shut, the key turned. Lance scowled at the door.

“What an asshole. He’s probably going to throw the muffins away. He doesn’t deserve them.”

Hunk sighed.

“Come on. He’s probably just awkward.”

“Awkward?” Lance turned around, waving his hand through the air indignantly. “He’s not awkward. He’s stuck up. I mean, he put a new lock into the door, but he didn’t change the wood or anything, and the greenhouse is still dirty. And he was barefoot! So pretentious. I bet he just moved here for the aesthetic; he won't stay long.”

Hunk pulled him towards the gate.

“Have you considered maybe he bought the cottage right next to the woods because he likes being alone and isn’t used to a lot of people?”

Lance snorted.

“No way. He hates people alright, but he probably took one look at us and knew we weren’t witches and didn’t deem us worth his time.”

Hunk shook his head but didn’t try to convince Lance of anything more. They walked home while the sun set, turning the grey-blue sky darker at the edges, a blackbird lulling nature to sleep.

  
  


If Lance hadn’t known Keith was his neighbor, he wouldn’t have noticed. In the next week, he didn’t see him once: He never passed Lance’s house, he never went to the market, or to town at all. He didn’t seem to have friends or acquaintances in town, and everyone who mentioned him only spoke of him as the new guy, the recluse, the interesting, mysterious one who lived next to the forest. It made Lance resent him more. And suspect what he had felt at first glance: Keith didn’t have a job in town, so he must be rich. And if he was rich, he must have a strong, important ability that made him an integral part of society, a witch.

When Lance had been younger, he had dreamed of becoming a witch. Someone would see a use in his ability, or he would save someone’s life one day, and be a hero. He listened to stories of people’s abilities changing and growing stronger over time and hoped he would be one of them. But he had grown up. Witches were not what his childish imagination had made them out to be. Their abilities did not make them into near deities. They didn’t even make them nice. Witches were stuck up rich people who laughed and looked down on the regular ones, the ones like Lance, who couldn’t do anything cool like see into minds or change appearances at will. And Keith was exactly like the rest of them.

A week and two days after Lance had walked to Keith’s cottage with Hunk, the sky darkened again, and vertigo hit Lance where he was sitting on his couch. The rain fell soft and drizzly onto the fresh green leaves beyond his window, and a soft smile slid into place on Lance’s lips as he lifted off the pillows. He hauled himself up and with his fingers tight on the windowsill, feet a handful of inches off the ground, Lance turned the handle and swung open the window. He closed his eyes; the rain pattering the leaves was like a lullaby, the air was clean and mild, and the feeling swirling in his gut was the essence of spring. Nothing human about it.

Something rustled the leaves. Lance blinked his eyes open, startled, and stared. A soft meow rose from underneath his forsythia, and when he pulled back a branch of bright yellow blossoms, a damp, ginger head of a beautiful cat stared back at him with pitiful eyes. She meowed again.

“Aw, poor baby,” Lance whispered, already maneuvering to get her inside, “did you get stuck?”

Once inside, they were both drenched, and Red climbed into his arms while Lance was trying to rub her down gently. He needed to get her back to Keith, but the rain was still going, and he couldn't let Red go alone. Keith might be an asshole, but his cat was innocent. And she was soft and nice, blinked at Lance with thankful eyes, and she would never judge him for his stupid floating like her owner would in a heartbeat.

Lance closed his eyes, the soft smile still on his lips. Red was purring.

  
  


Still floating above his couch, Lance's stomach dropped. It was not like the vertigo of rain, but like Lance was sad beyond control when he had been content seconds before. His heart clenched, and when he peered out the window, the rain was picking up. This was the human rain again, but a different sadness: Desperate, urgent, not as deep-rooted. If Lance had been anyone else, he would have run into the street at the feeling. But he was incapacitated by the rain. And still, the rain was a part of him, and he liked to imagine that he was part of the rain, too. Maybe that was why this rain wouldn’t leave him alone until he figured out who was responsible: Because he could still feel it, but he wasn’t part of it anymore. It was someone else’s rain he got to look in on.

Lance pressed his nose into Red's soft fur.

“Do you know what that’s about? Wanna go check, hm?”

She purred into his neck, and with his one arm free, Lance pulled himself over to the window. A gust of wind pushed a still-bare branch of one of his bushes into the forsythia, and behind it, someone with long black hair plastered to their face walked past. Lance's heart stumbled. Keith locked eyes with him. They were wide and desperate, and tear tracks ran down his cheeks beneath the rain. Lance’s mouth fell open as Red let out a desperate meow, and Keith’s gaze dropped to the cat. Relief washed through Lance, soul-shattering, but before tears could spring to his eyes, it was gone.

Just like the rain. Lance's feet touched his rug and he looked at Keith.

The sky was clear again. Keith was a statue outside in his soaked clothes, and there was only one logical explanation. The rain had stopped as soon as Keith knew that Red was okay. As much as Lance had wanted to deny it – Keith was tied to the rain as much as he was, tied to it by his _emotions_.

Lance set his jaw and jerked his chin towards the door. He wasn't sure yet whether he liked Keith more now, but he needed to know more.

Red was purring up a storm winding between Keith's legs as soon as he came out of the bathroom, in one of Lance's oldest shirts, still dripping from his hair. He was still an enigma, still a little too perfect, but maybe interesting, too.

And Keith seemed to think Lance’s house was just as interesting. As soon as he had realized Lance wasn’t going to kick him out or interrogate him, he traipsed to the living room, his fingers on Lance’s most-used handrail.

“What’s this for?”

Lance followed him, stomach bubbling with anticipation.

“So I can move around in here when it rains.”

Keith turned to him with a question in his eyes.

“Yeah, I kinda start floating. And I can’t control it, so I need to have something to hold onto.”

Keith nodded.

“When I was a kid, sometimes my whole bed was wet in the morning, and it took too long to convince everyone I wasn’t wetting myself.”

He sighed and the hint of a smile crossed his face.

“I used to sleep in the bathtub when I wasn’t feeling well.”

Lance laughed. It surprised himself how loud and abrupt it was, and it surprised him just as much that Keith smirked along, hands in his pockets, as if he was proud of it.

Keith didn’t stay long after that. He leaned close to the monstera in Lance’s living room, refused the cup of tea or lemonade, picked up Red, and mumbled a quiet thanks on his way out. Lance watched as he disappeared down the street, a smile on his lips and the distinct curling in his stomach that meant he hadn’t found out nearly enough about Keith and his ability.

  
  


The first days of April washed over the land with hailstorms and hot summer hours back to back, and Lance could barely leave his garden. Only a week before, he had visited Keith to deliver a package, and he had found him in the greenhouse, transformed into wholly Keith's now. Keith used his rain powers to water his plants, too, and it had turned the place into a paradise. He'd found a use for his weird ability, just like Lance had always wanted. Before, Lance might have been jealous. Now, it only had him itching to see Keith again, talk to him, grow closer, like their abilities were pushing them to be.

Sometimes the rain felt like Keith. Lance was never usually wrong about the rain, but maybe he was imagining it. He had been wrong about Keith at first, and he was thinking about him constantly since the greenhouse. The smell of him, like someone had sat down to paint in a muddy field after a rain shower, and the crease between his eyebrows as he had looked away, the crack in his voice as he had said _there’s never going to be a place where people understand_ me. Lance hadn't told him _there's me though, and Red_ like he had wanted.

Lance was glad once the sky was clear again for a few days, and he took his last chance to wander to the forest and pluck wood garlic. He had only filled one bag with fresh leaves when -

“Lance!”

Keith's shirt was inside out, his jacket hung from one arm, but at least he was wearing shoes. His eyes were wide, and his hands were shaking.

“She’s gone again. I don’t know where she went.”

  
  


Red wasn't anywhere in the forest. No bushy red tail, no bright little eyes, no trace of a small ginger cat anywhere. Their steps were leading them back to Keith's place, and Keith was clenching his jaw so much it had to hurt.

“What if she found her way home while we were out here, huh?”

Lance forced a smile.

“She won’t be there.”

Keith looked down, and his hair fell over his face in such a familiar way Lance knew, suddenly, with painful certainty: Keith was trying not to cry.

It didn’t matter if he was trying for Lance’s sake or not. He was trying, and that was enough explanation for the swooping in Lance’s stomach, the vertigo, almost as if it was about to rain.

To the back of Keith's garden, there was a pagoda at the side of a small artificial pond grown green and mossy with abandonment, a lilac bush in full bloom winding its way to the roof. It was nearly enough to make Lance forget about Red, and he drew nearer. The paint on one side of the pagoda came off easily underneath his fingertip, but the old wood was holding up well. With Keith's skill, this place could turn into something amazing: Purposefully, artistically messy, still natural, but groomed, not abandoned. Lance smiled at the thought.

Another swoop in his gut made him turn around to find Keith, arms crossed tightly, his gaze locked onto Lance. A tear was running down his cheek, and Lance almost let go, took a step towards him, he wanted to comfort him and tell him they’d find Red – but a raindrop landed on his forehead, and it was all he could do to hold onto the column.

The skies turned grey, and Lance was useless. Keith’s sadness – regretful, resigned sadness that didn’t fit him at all – flooded him, and Lance considered that maybe they wouldn’t find the cat. And without her, Keith would want to have nothing to do with Lance anymore, and he would move away, to a big city where someone would recognize his talent. The thought was a sharp sting in Lance’s chest.

“I hate this,” Lance said to the sky. “Why am I like this? There’s nothing helpful about being useless whenever it rains. I wish I could switch it for something else.”

Now he was about to cry, too. He shut his eyes and willed the tears away.

Keith’s steps on the damp grass came closer.

“I’m sorry I can’t help more with your cat,” Lance whispered.

Maybe Keith hadn’t heard him. Lance didn’t like talking about any of this, but Keith had revealed between the lines how he felt about his own ability, and Lance knew he wouldn’t make fun of him.

“I like your ability.”

Keith’s voice was quiet, but hoarse. When Lance turned in surprise, his eyes were still wet and overflowing, but he’d wiped away the tear tracks. He attempted a smile, and Lance’s heart gave a feeble attempt to beat faster.

“It doesn’t have to be useful. It’s like – body language. It’s as if your body was telling you to be happy whenever it rains, as if it’s so elated over the rain it can’t help but defy physics.”

“I - thanks.”

The rain hadn’t picked up, but Lance’s feet lifted a bit higher still, and he wound an arm around the pillar. This had never happened before. Maybe he would float away into the sky.

“I still wish I could find a way to apply the floating somewhere. You found such a great way to do something worthwhile with your ability. I’ve always wanted that.”

Keith smiled at him, despite the ongoing rain.

“I just did what I always wanted to.”

Lance attempted a smile, though his head was now level with the pagoda's roof.

“That’s just like you.”

Lance had never felt this weightless before. The rain had slowed, only humid air left, and the rain's sadness was replaced with something deeper and fuller as he looked into Keith’s eyes. He reached out onto the pagoda's roof to find something else to hold onto, something apart from the mass of sweet-smelling lilac. His fingers landed on something soft, less like fragile flower petals and more like-

Lance whipped his head around. A cat, disturbed from her deep sleep, lifted her head from underneath the lilac.

“Mrow?”

She blinked at Lance, and he gaped back. Keith let out a shout of surprise as a ray of sunshine broke through the clouds, but Lance was still floating higher than he ever had.

“Get her down, Lance!”

Keith hastened into the pagoda and turned pleading eyes at Lance and his cat, reaching his hands up as if he could jump and float up himself.

“Yeah, yeah.”

Lance grinned and looked back at the cat. She was stretching after her nap: Her paws reached all the way across the roof, and she yawned with all the force of a lazy cat. Lance smiled at her as she blinked at him, slowly standing again. He didn’t have to do more than reach out an arm for her to stalk towards him and rub her head against his cheek.

“Hey, we were worried about you, you know,” he whispered as he took her into his arms and let go of the roof.

Somehow, he knew it would be okay. He floated down gently, cat cradled in one arm, as if he had been able to control the height he was floating at all his life. Keith was tracking Lance’s descent with wide eyes and slack lips. He hadn’t bothered to move his water-slick hair out of his face, and it reminded Lance of how he’d been when he’d first met him: Fitting right in by being out of place, ethereal in his awkwardness, so weird, and yet he made so much sense exactly where he stood it hurt a little to look at him. Back then, he’d seen the same Keith, but he hadn’t known him, and assumed it was cultivated, an aesthetic he had chosen for himself. Now, he knew Keith was as genuine as it got, and it only hurt because Lance was grinning too broadly, and his heart was growing too large for his chest.

A little farther down, and Red meowed and hopped into Keith’s arms, rubbing against his neck and curling her tail around his arm as if she’d missed him just as much. Lance smiled and averted his eyes, reached his hand out towards one of the columns as Keith leaned down and murmured something to the cat. He might have helped, but this was not for him. For him was only the ability he had discovered, and didn’t know what he would do with yet, but as Lance cast his eyes to the skies, clear blue behind the dissipating clouds, he was sure he would figure it out. And if all he would ever do with his ability was rescue cats from roofs and reunite them with their owners, it would be enough.

His feet touched the ground again, first his toes on the moist, down-trodden grass, then his heels. Lance's heart was still soaring. Keith barely noticed anything but the cat anymore, so he cleared his throat.

"I'll be on my way. Glad I could help."

Keith's head snapped up. The sky reflecting in his eyes turned them deeper and yet lighter than usual, and Lance’s heart beat in his throat. For a moment, he thought Keith was going to object, but he nodded.

They walked to the front gate in companionable silence, Red still cradled in Keith's arms, and Lance knew they would figure everything out. 

Lance stepped through the white archway with a smile on his lips and the sun burning his neck, and he turned around to say goodbye. Keith was closer than he'd expected, just one corner of his mouth turned up, and the look in his eyes rooted Lance to the spot. Keith reached out and pulled Lance in with cold fingertips.

“Thank you, Lance,” Keith whispered.

His voice sent static up Lance’s spine.

Keith closed his eyes, and kissed Lance.

His lips tasted like rain. Lance never wanted to taste anything else again.

Lance blinked his eyes open to his feet above the ground, to Keith’s full-faced grin and sparkling eyes, the strong hand on his shoulder the only thing keeping him from floating away into the skies. His lips pulled into a dopey smile.

Lance didn't know how someone's powers transformed or what made them stronger. But he couldn't rule out that he had to kiss Keith again, when his fingertips were static on Lance's skin, they made him float without any rain. So, he leaned in again, and they kissed until Red whined to be let down.

When he went home, his feet were still two inches above the pavement.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed it :) leave me a kudos and a comment and tell me your thoughts!
> 
> you can also follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/cheeseroyalty) if you'd like


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